The Foreign Service Journal, December 2022

56 DECEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL zone over Bosnia, and establishment of “safe areas” for Bos- nian Muslims—did not stop the horrific violence. NATO forces, including the U.S. Air Force, enforced the no-fly zone and agreed to intervene to protect U.N. peacekeepers if they were attacked but refused to engage in offensive combat operations. For the Clinton administration, Bosnia was a wicked foreign policy problem exac- erbated by a lack of consensus on how to deal with it. Europe and NATO were divided on whether to intervene in Bosnia. European public opinion was hesitant about becoming militarily involved in the Bal- kans. There was humanitarian intervention versus let’s-avoid- a-quagmire disagreement in the U.S. interagency. Americans, exposed almost daily to images of the war broadcast by CNN and other international media, were ambivalent, believing on the one hand that the United States was morally obligated to do more to stop the humani- tarian disaster in the Balkans and, on the other, reluctant for Washington to be the world’s policeman in the emerging post–Cold War era. U.S. policy supported imposing economic sanctions on Serbia, enforcing the no-fly zone, providing humanitarian aid, and establishing a U.N. war crimes tribunal, but was based on a strategic assessment that an imposed solution would fail. “We believe the quickest, best, and most sustainable way to stop the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia,” Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in February 1993, “is to help create an environment in which all parties see it in their own self-interest to negotiate a political settlement.” In other words, the United States would use diplo- matic and economic carrots and sticks to encourage the Serbs to negotiate, but would not use force to stop them. Discontent at Foggy Bottom In April 1993, 12 Foreign Service officers sent a joint Dis- sent Channel message to Secretary Christopher asking that the administration make good on its campaign promise to support the besieged Bosnian Muslims. Christopher met with the dis- senters, but U.S. policy did not change. The humanitarian plight of the Bosnian Muslims got even worse. In June, flagrantly defying U.N. and international opinion, and with a viciousness that would make the atrocity a metaphor for the war, the Bosnian Serbs attacked Srebrenica, allegedly a U.N.-protected “safe area.” In July, they intensified their siege of the capital, Sarajevo; its fall appeared imminent. The administration’s noninter- ventionist policy on Bosnia had by this time led to considerable dismay and frustration among career diplo- mats, especially those working on the Balkans at the State Department. In July, the administration’s decision to embrace an ethnically based partition plan proposed by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic deepened their dismay. For Bosnia desk officer Marshall Harris, intelligence analyst Jon Western, and Croatia desk officer Stephen Walker, Secretary Christo- pher’s repeated public statements that the United States was doing all it could in Bosnia consistent with its national interest made it worse. The United States government, they believed, had moved from tolerating what they thought should have been recognized as genocide to being complicit in it. In their view, U.S. policy was in violation of international law: The U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide requires signatories to prevent, stop, and punish genocide. Harris resigned on Aug. 4, Western on Aug. 5, and Walker on Aug. 23, 1993. It is critical to appreciate how psychologically difficult it was for all three officers to sustain their support for U.S. policy as The November 1993 edition of The Foreign Service Journal put a spotlight on FSO resignations over Bosnia policy, featuring a discussion with three resignees. The cover photo by Liz Allan shows, from left, Stephen Walker, Marshall Harris, and George Kenney during an FSJ interview. Kenney was the first to resign, in 1992, when he was serving as acting Yugoslavia desk officer. Walker and Harris, Croatia and Bosnia desk officers respectively, resigned a year later, in 1993. The three met with FSO Brandon Grove, then chair of the FSJ Editorial Board, to discuss their resignations. The transcript of that discussion, “The Agony of Dissent,” appears on page 36 of the November 1993 FSJ .